The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Kate Schechter would like to know why everyone she meets knows her name - and why Thor, the Norse god of thunder, keeps showing up on her doorstep. Dirk Gently, detective and refrigerator wrestler, can uncover the mystery, and only the absurdist wit of Douglas Adams can recount them with such relentless humor.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Yes and I'm sure I'll listen to it again and again. A really fun and enjoyable and surprising story.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Douglas Adams?

No - I LOVE Adams as an author but as a reader he fell flat. I mean I don't need all the voices and accents done exactly but there were lots of moments where more infliction or even a pause for effect was needed.

Any additional comments?

Seriously this is a great story but imagine if it were read by either Stephen Fry or Alan Cumming?? Brilliant would be my one word review.

Whiskey Rebellion

My name is Addison Holmes, and I teach history at James Madison High School in Whiskey Bayou, Georgia. You might be under the assumption that my life went to the dogs when my fiancé left me at the altar for the home economics teacher, or when I got notice that my apartment building was going to be condemned, or even when I was desperate enough to strip to my unmentionables to earn some extra cash. The truth is that I'm pretty much used to disasters following me around on a daily basis.

Since I'm unable to return this book for a refund I will leave a bad review to warn other readers. In all fairness the book itself might be okay and I may pick it up and read it myself at a later day if i find it on a bargain shelf but due to terrible narration I wasn't even able to finish it.

I understand the the story was set in the south and ordinarily wouldn't have had a problem with a southern accent but this woman was putting it on thick like she was reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. There was NO emotion and emphasis was slapped in all the wrong places making me wonder if she even understood what it was she was reading.

If you're interested in this story grab the actual book don't bother with the audiobook.

Revival

In a small New England town, in the early '60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-30s, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again....

It's been a while since Stephen King wrote a book that really grabbed me but this blew me away! A tight, well crafted story that feels almost like a a true bow of respect to the greats who came before: Lovecraft, Matheson, & even Burroughs.

Both entertaining, endearing, and existential, Revival touched on the big questions that plague us all regarding religion, life, and what it is that makes a person who they are and who they become. I could talk all day about what it is that made this book so enjoyable and worthy but it's impossible to do so without spoilers and this is one of those books you need to come at with a clean slate.

Time of Death: Induction (A Zombie Tale)

In a few short days, 37-year-old Emma Rossi's hard work will finally pay off. She will don her cap and gown and graduate with a degree in nursing, but not before she loses her first patient and is confronted with a new reality. In Cape Coral, Florida, a storm approaches. The dead are coming back to life. And they're hungry.

When I started listening to this book I had my doubts that it was going to be a memorable zombie novel. I mean it starts like something Janet Evanovich (when she was good) might have written. I was enjoying the characters and the back stories and the funny nurse stories BUT what does any of that have to do with zombies or horror??

Oh My God was I wrong. When everything went to hell - I cared - a lot. At one point I had to sit down, with my hands over my mouth at the sheer horror of it. The tone of the story and the voice of the narrator made for a very real woman in a very real world overrun by flesh eating zombies.

This story was scary, funny, at times endearing, and at times so disturbing I had to stop what I was doing and just listen with my head in my hands.

A Quick Bite

Lissianna has been spending her centuries pining for Mr. Right, not just a quick snack, and this sexy guy she finds in her bed looks like he might be a candidate. But there's another, more pressing issue: her tendency to faint at the sight of blood . . . an especially annoying quirk for a vampire. Of course it doesn't hurt that this man has a delicious-looking neck. What kind of cold-blooded vampire woman could resist a bite of that?

The Loon

The isolated, maximum security prison for the criminally insane that houses some of the nation’s deadliest, most frightening psychopaths. But when a freak storm cuts off all communications and causes a massive power outage, the prisoners get loose...and find there is nowhere to go. The blizzard rages outside. The inmates are now in charge and the staff must band together to survive.

And then they all discover that the inmates aren't the most dangerous thing about The Loon.

14

There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment. Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s.

I was blown away by this story. The characters were beautifully imagined and real - I mean I could believe they had lives outside the events of the story - and the way they interacted with one another never failed to make me smile and just care about them more. And fear for them more when they come face to face with the horror of what's on the other side of the door.

I completely enjoyed this story and even though I was glad to see those who survived I was sorry to see the ending. This story was an entertaining slow burn and I will recommend it to everyone I meet.

Life of Pi

Pi Patel has been raised in a zoo in India. When his father decides to move the family to Canada and sell the animals to American zoos, everyone boards a Japanese cargo ship. The ship sinks, and 16-year-old Pi finds himself alone on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon it's just Pi, the tiger, and the vast Pacific Ocean - for 227 days. Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they reach the coast of Mexico, where the tiger disappears into the jungle.

It's safe to say that I read a lot. I am a ravenous reader and writer and someone confused about the varied spiritual paths. This book turned the whole argument of life-meanings, faith and religion, and story telling on it's head. Every line seems multilayered but not in a pretentious difficult way, but more like an unfolding of meanings created by beautiful language.

Dead Ever After: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel, Book 13

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris has won numerous awards for her Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series, which has been adapted into the hit HBO show True Blood. In this 13th and final book, a murder rocks the town of Bon Temps and Sookie is arrested for the crime. After making bail, she sets out to clear her name - but her investigation only leads to more deaths.

Yeah - the writer. I saw nothing wrong with the idea or the story but the way it was written was completely lacking and without charm or style.

Has Dead Ever After turned you off from other books in this genre?

No - I love mysteries, paranormal romance and urban fantasy.

Did Johanna Parker do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

I guess - She sounded like a older woman putting on a southern accent... *shrug*

Could you see Dead Ever After being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

LOL yeah I used to think the books were better now I prefer the tv show

Any additional comments?

It is completely unacceptable for a "PROFESSIONAL" author and publisher to put out a book of this low standard. It felt unpolished and underwritten. I honestly think Harris should have hired a ghost writer to write this last book if she was so damned unhappy and bored with writing the series. But hey, I'm sure she's not unhappy with the profits she's making off this pathetic excuse for a book.

The Mighty Boosh: The Complete Radio Series

The Mighty Boosh is unlike any show you are ever likely to hear, and one that defies description; the closest you could get to the unique style of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding would be in the early days of Reeves and Mortimer, with their cardboard props and men with sticks.

The Night Circus

In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Rêves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire. Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice.

You’re walking aimlessly through a bookshop looking for a new read. You don’t quite know what you are looking for but you feel as though you’ll recognize it when you see it…

I recognized The Night Circus the second I saw it as something I needed to read. Whether I would enjoy or even finish it I wasn’t sure but something told me that I needed to at least try.

This is not an easy book to define but I’ll do my best. It’s essentially two interwoven stories, one tells the tale of a boy visiting the circus each year or so when it passes through his town. He makes friends with two of the children who work in the circus with a charming kitten show and together they explore all the amazing wonders of the circus and it’s seemingly infinite number of tents. One holds a winter wonderland of snow and ice, another simply holds a bowl of perfect black stones that take away your tears for a night. From incredible to subtly beautiful the boy of course falls in love with the circus so the rest of the world is merely a grey blur in comparison.

The other story is that of the two magicians who created and are still creating the great circus. Marco and Celia are in love and though they met as adults they have been in love their whole lives, writing love letters to one another through each magical tent they create. But they are merely pawns in a bigger, darker game played between Celia’s father and Marco’s mentor. The two lovers have been pitted against each other in a battle of wills and power, a battle to the death.

The Night Circus is not for everyone. It doesn’t read like your usual linear story in fact it reads rather like a painting or rather one of those long tapestries. I’m not sure I would want to read too many stories written this way, but this was so beautifully constructed that I could possibly enjoy a few like it.

One thing I think I should mention - The narration didn't quite do this story justice. I can't really fault the narrator BUT I can't help but think this story would have been more enjoyable if read by an English lady.

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